Manage Screen Time & Motivate Your Kids

For Screen Time & Home School Balance

“”The result of using Habyts has been incredible…”

Lisa is a home-school Mom. Here is how Habyts helped Izzy and her mum Lisa manage the complexities of screen time and homeschooling.

Life Before Habyts

The biggest battle of Home Educating my 8 year old daughter was ensuring she didn’t spend too much time on the computer, playing games and watching videos.The ‘lure’ of the PC gaming was always there, she couldn’t focus on her work as just wanted to get back to it and it was really quite worrying because we would argue about it quite a bit and it had made the home learning experience a little difficult.We have very busy lives, Izzy has ponies to ride and spends hours at the farm, she has lots of things to do outside of the home, we have quite a few pets, plus I run a business from home…all this means that the time available for learning is precious and not to be wasted.I had been desperate to find something to help us manage her time, so that she knew exactly where she was in the day, what she needed to do and when she was allowed to play on the PC.

Life After Using Habyts

“The result of using Habyts has been incredible – not only is her work being done without opposition but she is spending even less time playing PC games than she could, despite having plenty of Play Time available it is simply not being used. Instead she has begun to move back to her physical things like Lego and Meccano. Bed times and mornings have become a total breeze, although the 5 point reward for getting dressed is not quite doing the trick and she still likes to loll about in her pants all morning!I have already recommended Habyts to many of my Home Ed friends, I really do think making life as easy as possible is the way to go – and this helps so much that I know we won’t go back to the old ways.The Habyts ‘people’, Cynthia and Andrew, and their Customer Service Manager Vic, are really passionate about Habyts and I can tell they are very keen to bring new features to help parents and children even more – it is very refreshing to have a real software solution made by people that actually know about what it is supposed to do!”You can read more about Home Ed and Habyts on Lisa’s blog: https://dayofthekid.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/techno-kid-bad-habits-need-habyts/

How We Did It

Tasks

Lisa used Habyts to schedule her daughter’s educational and playtime periods, so she can see what subject is to be done and for how long.

This is easy to set up using the Tasks section.

To do this yourself, set each subject as a Task, selecting Monday-Friday and the due time. In Lisa’s case, she set it to any time that day to give her daughter some flexibility in which subjects she could do when.

“Every period of work had to be approved, and once they were done Izzy got a period of Play Time – where she could watch videos or play games on the websites that have been allowed.”

To do this, click both Block Play Time and Needs Approval.

Once Izzy has completed the Task and Lisa has approved it, Lisa can then set Play Time from her home dashboard until it’s time for Izzy to go back to her next subject and Task.

“Being an independent child that prefers to self-learn, she is able to decide what to do for some subjects, while others I am more specific about the subject to be done, and she only needs to ask for help when needed.”

Study Time

Lisa also used the Study Time tab to limit the programs Izzy could use during Study Time.

To do this, go to the Study Time section and:

Decide if Study Time is unlimited or for a set period of time

If the latter, decide how long Study Time should last

Decide which websites you want to block during Study Time.

“I like the fact I can limit the programs she can use during Study Time too – many child time management software’s that I have tried block the entire PC from use, which is no good for a Home Education setting – it’s easy to set up the educational programs that she can use.”

Rewards

Lisa then used points for non-educational Tasks, so the things Izzy is meant to do every day, but often forgets, like filling the cats food up and tidying her desk!

“We’ve added in some rewards that she has chosen so it’s a good incentive for her to do things without having to be reminded by me.”

Having Habyts has made both our lives more peaceful and easy – there has been very little opposition to doing her work, because it’s clearly set out what is needing to be done and when she will be able to play. I believe that having the requirements in place on Habyts eases her mind, she knows exactly what she can do and when, and finds it easy to use the child dashboard.

Imagine

Your family is free of screen time battles, homework hassles, and chore wars. Distracted children are motivated. Daily routines are established. Family life is fun again. Now... open your eyes... watch the video and see what we believe in...